


Balancing Act

by callunavulgari



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 05:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4251180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wrinkles his nose and makes a face at Derek’s back. “Our names are boring. Everyone has a Fear, but Scott’s special, because he’s got a <i>Stiles.</i>”</p><p>Derek shoots Stiles a withering glare over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be cowering in a corner right now?”</p><p>“Just because I’m afraid doesn’t mean I have to let it control my life. Or Scott’s life for that matter. Just like how you don’t have to let being angry control yours. I’ve been telling you guys for ages. It’s all about <i>balance</i>.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balancing Act

**Author's Note:**

> I... would like to say that I'm not proud of this. But I came out of the movie theater with an intense desire to write an AU where Derek, Stiles, and the gang were Scott's emotions. So that is exactly what happened. An Inside Out/TW fusion, because the Monster's University one wasn't weird enough. At first I wanted to explore the idea that the core emotions 'gave birth' to others, but then I figured that it would be too weird to have Derek and Stiles give birth to Erica, even in the metaphysical sense, so uh. I didn't. But that's where this could have ended! ...Erica totally would have been Passion. Boyd would have been Serenity. Ignore me while I frolic in my weird, weird mind.

“They probably don’t even miss us right now.”

Derek doesn’t even twitch in his direction — shoulders back, chin up, mouth set into a scowl — right now he looks like the embodiment of pride, which is funny, because Stiles always thought that pride was more of an Allison thing. With maybe a little bit of Lydia thrown in, because c’mon, it was _Lydia_. She may be disgusted by anything and everything, particularly Stiles, but the girl knew her shit.

“They’re probably having the time of their life up there, partying it up. Booze, girls, c’mon Derek, you know too much happiness really _can_ kill you.”

Derek does twitch a little bit, but he doesn’t turn around. “Sadness and Disgust will keep Scott balanced while we’re gone. And stop giving us nicknames.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose and makes a face at Derek’s back. “Our names are boring. Everyone has a Fear, but Scott’s special, because he’s got a _Stiles_.”

Derek shoots Stiles a withering glare over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be cowering in a corner right now?”

Stiles snorts. “Just because I’m afraid doesn’t mean I have to let it control my life. Or Scott’s life for that matter. Just like how _you_ don’t have to let being _angry_ control _yours_. I’ve been telling you guys for ages. It’s all about balance.”

Jazz hands. Derek doesn’t even turn to look.

“Let’s just keep focused on getting back,” he growls, picking up the pace. Stiles has to break into a jog to keep up.

“C’mon, dude,” he wheedles, tapping Derek’s bicep and offering a sunny smile when Derek turns to glower at him. “Where’s your sense of humor?”

“Maybe Scott’s bipolar,” Derek muses, eyes narrowed on the walls of memories passing them by. “Maybe that’s why his Fear thinks it’s Joy.”

Stiles clucks his tongue and makes a face of disgust. See, _disgust_. All about balance. “I’d be an awful Joy. That’s why we’ve got Allison.”

Derek stops abruptly, the core memories in his backpack clinking together. Stiles can see the red-purple glow of them from where he’s standing and frowns. Supposedly all they have to do is get these back to Allison, have her touch them, and then everything will be all rainbows and sunshine again. They survived _puberty_ , okay? They can survive this girl trouble issue.

“Stop. Naming. Us.”

Derek looks really angry. His eyes are burning and red, narrowed in Stiles’ direction. His ears are _literally_ smoking.

Stiles leans in, pushing down the fresh surge of terror that threatens to overwhelm him, and breathes, “No.”

With a howl of rage, Derek flings the pack away from him and tackles Stiles into the nearby longterm storage shelf. Maybe he should listen to his gut sometimes. All that fear is kind of a unique brand of self-preservation.

.

“I can’t believe you tainted me,” Stiles hisses fifteen minutes later, rubbing viciously at the red bruise marring his normally pristine cheek. “Red is an awful color on me.”

Derek grins widely. It’s more of a threat than a smile, what with the multitude of bared teeth, but whatever. Stiles will take it.

He cocks his head, eyeing Derek critically. There’s a smear of purple across his neck from where Stiles had tried to hold him back and while he’d like to tease Derek and tell him that purple really isn’t his color, there’s a part of him that likes it.

They continue on in silence, marching stoically past an absolutely bouncing Love Island. Stiles grimaces a little.

“I hope Allison made him wrap it before he tapped it,” he says mournfully, looking away from the pornographic automatons which are happily… bouncing a little bit themselves. “STDs are the stuff nightmares are made of.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “I doubt Disgust would have let Scott catch a venereal disease. And just because Joy is what she is doesn’t mean she’s stupid.”

Stiles arcs one eyebrow at him, entirely judgemental. “Uh huh,” he says, unimpressed. “So you can’t recall _one instance_ where she would have jumped right into something dangerous if I hadn’t stopped her.”

Derek’s lips are pursed. Hah. Take that.

“How about breaking into the school after hours? That could have gone way bad. Scott would have gotten arrested with the rest of his little buddies.”

Derek doesn’t budge.

“Or the time that everyone went skinny dipping and got leeches, but Scott didn’t, because I took the wheel.”

The furrow between Derek’s brow is dipping dangerously low.

“Or…”

“All right, fine! You win. They’re a wreck up there without you, is that what you wanted me to say?”

Stiles smirks, satisfied.

“We’ll just… get you back to headquarters and have Allison fix the core memories. Everything will be fine.”

Stiles puzzles over that for a moment, because there was something about what Derek just said that rubbed him wrong.

Oh.

“Did you just say Allison?” he asks, eyes wide.

To his surprise, Derek blushes, cheeks a bright glowing red. The smear of purple around his neck spreads all the way down to his clavicle, but Stiles doesn’t really pay much attention to it. It can’t be a bad thing to have a little more fear in your life, after all. Fear makes you _smart_.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Derek growls, turning back towards the train, which so far seems to still be circling Love Island. Ugh, they’re still going at it. _Gross_.

.

“I don’t understand,” Derek tells him, glancing up at Stiles. They’re both crouched into a corner of Dream Productions. Scott’s nineteen now, so his dreams are… well. Most of the actors aren’t exactly clothed, and the ones who are all seem to be heading to the room where they make the best nightmares.

“No, see, it’ll be great. We’ll scare him awake, hop back onto the train, and sort this whole mess out.”

Derek looks at him for a long moment. The smear of purple has spread up the side of his neck and over his ear, so huge that there’s a thin tendril curling out just under Derek’s eye. Reluctantly, Stiles had begun to worry about it once he’d realized that the red on his cheek has been spreading too.

“Do you really think that would work?” he asks.

Stiles shrugs. “It’s either that or we walk into one of the wet dreams and make Scott doubt his sexuality. Either way, he’ll wake up, but I’m pretty sure you’d prefer the nightmare.”

Derek’s blushing again. Well shit, maybe…

Quickly, Stiles shakes his head. There will be no more of those kinds of thoughts.

“C’mon, man,” he says, clapping Derek on the back and offering him a grin. “You’re _Anger_. You’ve got this in the bag.”

.

“...You really didn’t have that in the bag.”

Derek’s whole face is glowing bright red and he hasn’t looked up once since they got on the train. “I’m a pretty bad actor,” he admits, biting down on his lower lip. It appears to be turning purple as well, but apparently they’re still not talking about that.

“Understatement,” Stiles snorts. “If I hadn’t improvised, you would have gotten us thrown into the subconscious. Do you know what lives down there?” He shudders. Creepy things, that’s what.

“He woke up,” Derek bites out. “That’s all that matters.”

Stiles sucks in a deep breath, massaging the blotch of red around his wrist. He hadn’t even noticed it until Derek had let go of his wrist, pulling away from Stiles and his greedy mouth, all but sprinting for the train.

“Guess we aren’t going to talk about our brief jaunt into soft-core porn,” he hisses meanly, viciously pleased when Derek flinches.

“It wasn’t that bad and you know it,” Derek says, not taking his eyes off of his feet.

There had been kissing. Some heavy petting. Even a hand down the back of Stiles’ pants before Scott had finally woken up. It was totally approaching softcore.

“Fuck you, Derek,” he hisses, something hot and resentful curling in his chest.

Derek’s eyes dart towards him. It’s a brief look, and full of fear, but it’s there. Where normally Stiles could expect Derek to blow up on him, to rant and rage and possibly punch things, now Derek just turns his eyes away again.

Fuming, Stiles turns his back on him.

.

“Whoa,” Lydia says when they finally reach the Headquarters. “What happened to you two?”

Allison comes out from behind the controls, a huge smile on her face. The moment she sees them however, it contorts, turning into a blank look of confusion. “You’ve… swapped colors.”

Stiles scowls, flopping down in a chair and throwing his feet up on the table, watching as Derek edges around the perimeter of the room. Docilely, he offers the bag of tainted core memories to Allison. She takes them with bemusement, peering inside as Isaac does the same over her shoulder.

“You should touch them,” Derek tells her, biting down on his lip and avoiding her eyes. “That’ll make everything right again.”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia interrupts, shaking her head. Red curls fly every which way before they settle softly against her apple green cheeks. “But is no one concerned by Derek and Stiles switching aspects? That’s a _big_ deal.”

Stiles sneers. “We’ll live. I’ll probably make a better Anger anyway. Derek’s too much of a _coward_  for the position.”

Derek flinches, _hard_.

“Stiles!” Allison cries, looking horrified. “Apologize!”

“Why?” Stiles asks. “I’m not sorry.”

“Yes, you are.”

Derek’s voice is so quiet that Stiles almost doesn’t hear it. Almost.

He turns his head slowly, teeth bared, and pushes himself up off the chair. Derek is staring him down, spine straight, chin up. He’s every inch of his old self in that moment, except for how he’s the wrong color.

“Excuse me?”

“You are sorry,” Derek says again. “You’re angry right now because you’re afraid that you ruined everything between us. That’s how it works. We’re two sides of the same coin, you can’t have one of us without the other.”

All the fight goes out of Stiles, snuffed out like a candle in the night.

“And did I?” he asks, watching idly as a swirl of purple dusts through the red of his arm. The surge of terror that spears through him is so much stronger than he’s used to. “Did I ruin things?”

Derek smiles, taking that last step so they’re standing in each other’s space. Carefully, he reaches up to tap a finger against Stiles’ skull. “It’s like you said before,” he breathes. “It’s all about balance. Sometimes you have to be a little bit angry to have the courage to ask for what you want.”

Stiles grins back at him, leans in—

“This is very touching,” Lydia drawls, her hip pressed to the console. “But we should probably fix Scott before he ruins his chances with Kira forever. Right now he’s thinking about experimenting with Danny in the locker room, so whatever you two did, fix it.”

And with that, she turns her back on all of them.

Stiles looks at Derek, eyes wide.

Derek looks back.

Together, they burst into laughter.

 


End file.
